A Play of Forms. Curt Lahs and Heinrich Wildemann

In our forthcoming exhibition we are showing watercolours, gouaches, oil paintings, and woodcuts by Curt Lahs (1893 – 1958) and Heinrich Wildemann (1904 – 1964), works that fascinate through their interplay of forms and colours.

Curt Lahs was indefatigable in his quest for the artistic expression, which he found in a reduction to the “pure” form. For all that, it did not matter to him whether “a picture is representational or not representational, but rather whether it is true and genuine”. Lahs’ colourful style shows soft sweeps and, occasionally, pictorial structures of graphic effects. A lyrical mood marks many of his works.

In accordance with his motto “Die Kunst hat zu ordnen”, Heinrich Wildemann, in his expressiveness of forms, sorts the world’s abundance and variety into vivid, suggestive arrangements. His painting was abstract. As a master of subdued tonality, he combines colour planes bright and dark, murky and clear into a polyphone composition.

During the rule of National Socialism, the lives and work of the two painters are endangered by exclusion, defamation, and imprisonment. As a consequence, Wildemann withdraws and to live in an inner exile. Lahs leaves Germany and lives mainly abroad. After the Second World War, Lahs returns, living at first in Halle and then, from 1949 on, in West Berlin, as a professor at the college of visual arts. Recommended by Willi Baumeister, Wildemann becomes his successor and a professor at the Stuttgart art academy.

Opening: Friday, 8 May 2016, from 6 to 9 pm 
The exhibition will be opened by Dr. Birgit Möckel, art historian.